Group Policy

I have a folder on a network share drive.  I would like to push that folder to everyone's desktop.  I was wondering if there is a way to use group policy to make this happen?

Thanks

Do you need to copy the contents of this folder to the local computer?  What if the contents of the folder change?  Do you want users to be able to change the contents and synchronize with others?

Yes, i will need parent folder and sub folders on local computer.  The only user that will have access to make changes is the admin.  All the other users will have read only access.  It will be a network shared folder.  I know I could create a login script to map a network drive to the folder, but senior management wants it to be a folder on everyone's desktop. 

Can you just create a shortcut on the users desktops to point to the network share?  You really don't want a copy of that folder on each users' systems I'm thinking?

Yeah, I'm with patrickhulst.  I don't understand the purpose for wanting it on everyone's desktop.  What you're describing is a network share.  The best way and most manageable way to make sure everyone has a local copy is to enable Offline Folder Synchronization.  Just apply the rights to the network share and also the local server NTFS rights the way you want them (i.e. read, write, delete, etc), then through GPO you enable Offline File Synchronization and also force the synchronization of that one folder.

I am still having trouble wrapping my brain around why they would want a local copy of that folder on the desktop.  Let us know if you need more direction than what I gave you - it should point you in the right direction for your searches.

Maybe i wasn't being clear.  In the past if something like this came up we would touch every computer and a create a short cut on the desktop.  I was wondering if there is a way to create that shortcut and push it through group policy.

It looks like i will have to touch every PC and create that shortcut.

You can really really really mess up stuff with GP.  You can also make life so easy with it.

If you don't want to muck with GP, you can accomplish the same thing by copying the file to your local desktop folder via a login script.  Each time a user logs into the domain, the shortcut gets copied there.  Off the top of my head you can save the shortcut to a network share, edit the login script(s) and have the script copy that file (drive-shortcut.lnk say) to the %allusers%\desktop folder.  Or whatever variable fits your desktops... xp/vista/etc.

It's cheap and dirty, but it does work.  (I've had to do something similar to link all the SAV clients to a different server one time... this is a long time ago so some playing is definitely required on it before putting it into production.)

I like that option, patrickhulst.  I don't think its messy at all.  Jsut because you could do it with GPO, doesn't mean there aren't easier ways to manage it.

In response to Patrick, would/could you just script the fileshare to map as a (forgive me if my terminology is off) drive? I.e. \\SERVERNAME\FILESHARE = G drive. Then the users can just go to their Windows explorer  address dropdown or their My Comp. and they will have the drive mapped. I would think this would be a cleaner way of doing it but I could be mistaken.

cantc123, that is certainly a much cleaner way of doing this.  We map drives for our users in a similar manner.  We have a mixture of users who are computer illiterate, and savy, and both groups have not had a hard time learning how to save to their network drive. 

Except the requirements were to not touch each PC and have the shortcut on the desktop.  Doesn't matter where the shortcut points to (either network share or a mapped drive) - he was just told to get it on the desktops.

No question a mapped drive would work.  Unless each share has a mapped drive... or whatever the environment is.